ON MY FIRST SON *

We begin with good-bye. The speaker issaying farewell to his son after only seven
years. Sad. It seems that the speaker
blames himself in a way for the loss of his
.son
The speaker then envies his son, who(since he's dead) is free from both the
physical and the mental pains of life. The
son also won't have to worry about the
.hassles of getting old, either
The speaker then asks his son to tellanyone who asks that he (the son) is Ben
Jonson's best piece of poetry. Then, for his
own sake, the speaker vows in future not to

Lines 1-2
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
.My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy
The poem begins with the speaker saying "farewell" to his . child
The speaker also says his "sin" (or mistake) was that he had "too much hope" for his son. He implies that there is some
. connection between his love for the boy and the boy's death
.That's odd
The phrase "child of my right hand" is also kind of funny. Itimplies that the speaker's son was born from his right hand
(weird, huh?). Or maybe this implies something about the
speaker's favoritism toward his first-born? (Think of the phrase
"my right-hand man.")

Child of my right hand" also would indicate that the speaker's son islucky. The right is always the good side; the left is the bad or sinister
side. (In Latin, a language Jonson knew well, the word for left side is
the
.(same word that gives us sinister in English
As it turns out, Ben Jonson's first son was named Benjamin (just likehis father(, and in Hebrew Benjamin means son of right hand."
Okay, so maybe "child of my right hand" isn't so weird after all. But
how many
people really know what Benjamin means in Hebrew? Sheesh!
Finally read these lines aloud. Go ahead. Nobody's looking. Noticeanything? These lines are in a very famous rhythm:
iambic pentameter. If you've read any Shakespeare (a friend of
.Jonson's(, you should be picking up what we're putting down

Basically, an iamb is a combination of one unstressed and one stressedsyllable. It sounds like da-DUM (for example, the word "belong" is an
iamb). Iambic pentameter is five of these bad boys in one line, or daDUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM. See how these first lines fit that
."Form and Meter "rhythm almost perfectly? For more on this, check out

Lines 3-4
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
.Exacted by thy fate, on the just day
The speaker continues his lament, saying that his son was only seven years old when he died ("seven years thou were
"(.lent to me
He also says that his son was "lent" to him, and the time has come for him (the son) to return to Heaven. It sounds almost
.like he checked out a library book or something

Wert," by the way, is an obsolete form of "were." You could -)"

say to your friend who just left the bank, "you wert just
.(there"though you might get some funny looks if you did

I thee pay" means that the speaker must now "payback" his son. In this money-lending metaphor, God, or
. Heaven, is a bank, or lender
The phrase "exacted by thy fate" continues thatmetaphor. "Exacted" means something like demanded,
only more in the sense of a punishment. It's like saying,
"Since you didn't return your books to the library, we will
now exact punishment in the form of 10 dollars." (That's
a way harsh late fee, by the way. We wonder who would
charge that much.(
Just" is an interesting word to use to describe the day-
your son dies, don't you think? Most people don't
.consider death fair or "just

The speaker implies, however, that it is "just" or fair for the childto die since he believes that the child was only on "loan" from
God. (It's kind of like how it is only fair for you to return your
books to the library after the loan-period has expired.(

LINE5-6

Oh, could I lose all father now! For why Will man
? lament the state he should envy

Here, the speaker sounds as if he wishes he could lose "all" of.his father (that's kind of bizarre isn't it?)
It seems less freaky, though, if you think of it as the speakeractually wishing to abandon all thoughts of fatherhood ("lose
all father now"), because he's so upset. The idea of fatherhood
.will never be the same for him since his son has just died
He then asks why people get upset ("lament") about death. Inreality they should "envy" it (i.e., desire the state that the
dead have achieved). "State" here means state (of death), not,
.you know, state of California

More weirdness. -Why would anybody "envy" those who are dead?
Perhaps the speaker is trying to find some consolation in death, or
.perhaps he thinks life in Heaven is better
Notice that the speaker says "man" and not "I." Do you think he's-
speaking for everybody, for himself, or for people that think differently
?than he does

Lines 7-8
To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
!And if no other misery, yet age
The speaker elaborates on why he thinks.he should envy the state of death
He says he should because those who are dead have escaped the pains of
the world and the pains of the body ("flesh's rage"), like stomachaches,
.arthritis, that sort of thing
It's pretty wild to think of physical pains as flesh's rage. Although, when we
stub our toes (which we do a lot), it does kind of feel like our toe is
screaming at us. To give inanimate body parts a human emotion is a
.personification technique called

He also says that even if the dead haven't really escaped from anything, at least.they have escaped or avoided the pains of old age (this is what he means by "age

Scaped is just the word escaped without the "e." Poets like to do this sometimes,and it's not because they're lazy typists. Notice how dropping the "e" keeps the
iambic pentameter rhythm intact. "Escaped" would throw the meter off, but "'scaped"
keeps it regular

Lines 9-10
Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, "Here doth lie
,Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry
.The speaker tells his son to rest in peaceThen he gives him some other advice, which is kind of hard to make out.
The sequence of words "Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry" is slightly
.odd, we have to admit
Here's the deal, though: the speaker tells his son that, if he (the son) is asked, he should tell folks that he (the son) is the "best piece" of Ben
Jonson's poetry. (It's not clear who, exactly, would be asking the dead son
?(questions. Angels? Other people in Heaven
Basically, the speaker wants his son to say "Here Ben Jonson has laid to rest his best piece of poetry." This is a pretty important metaphor, in
.which the speaker refers to his son as a work of art

Lines 11-12
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be
such
."As what he loves may never like too much

The speaker concludes the poem by telling his son that he .(the speaker) will make a vow
The speaker's vow will be never to "like too much" the
things he loves. In other words, if he loves something, he's
not going to get too crazy about it because you never know
.when it will be taken away. Sad
The structure of line 11 is a bit wacky. It could either be a
command (the speaker is commanding all his vows to "be
.such") or a prediction (the speaker's vows will "be such")

In either case, it is clear by the end that the speaker is

encouraging himself not to "like" the things he loves "too
much." Can you relate to this, when you love something,
but you also like it too much? It sounds weird, but the idea
is that there is a price to pay for being too attached to
something in this life. Again, it's not a very cheery thought,
.we have to admit